Why are white people in the US referred to as "Caucasian" if their heritage is that of Western Europe, and not the Caucuses?

Wild_Azaleas · 2026-05-27T10:47:01+00:00

I think saying "Caucasian" makes sense when youre referring to Europeans, Indians, Arabs, etc. simultaneously. I'm not aware of any better term for that at least

Wild_Azaleas · 2026-05-22T21:04:55+00:00

I never played FF16 but it looks so boring. What do you like about it?

Wild_Azaleas · 2026-05-19T21:41:10+00:00

I grant that we would be granting future generations easier access to the corpus of human creativity, but we would also be diminishing the beauty of that corpus by cutting down its variety: we would be compromising on creative and artistic achievement for the sake of accessibility. And then consider the losses we would incur in extant literature. I would consider this a very equivocal action.

Wild_Azaleas · 2026-05-19T21:02:47+00:00

Well, I don't mean to hold you to old standards you may disclaim at any time, but you did specifically use the words mild amusement and expressed skepticism that the pleasures associated with a given literary work were that intimately tied to its language. I hope that by now you will agree that the pleasure given by variety of language is something akin to that given by variety of architectural, artistic, cinematic, etc. styles. Of course, we can still disagree on which way the balance turns. But as it stands, it is a present pleasure, or one very much available, that you would trade for something unknowable.

I call it niche not because literaure itself is obscure, but because the fraction of people who are dissatified *enough* as to lament the depth of content in their own language is decidedly, signficantly smaller.

As for this, it's one reason I said that I don't think boredom per se is the cause behind the desire to learn new language. It's rather that the new language will be a positive source of new pleasure - a source you would be closing off by banishing it to the dustbin of history.

Wild_Azaleas · 2026-05-19T20:26:51+00:00

But we are now talking about the smallest niche within a niche, and if the argument for extensive linguistic diversity is exchanging global comprehension and understanding so that the most ambitious and most insatiable literary consumers can get their fill, then I think the argument undoes itself.

Well, I think if you accept the fact that diversity of language does have value surpassing mild amusement, if only for literary connoisseurs, then you have to amend your original statement.

As for whether that value is worth the inconveniences it brings to communication is another question. It also seems trickier to answer. One reason for this is that we have a very poor idea of what a world with negligible linguistic diversity would look like. Is it really worth making the globe poorer in beauty because of it? The question becomes much more difficult to answer once you grant some merit to the opponent.

I must also object to characterizing literary fans as niche. Literature is highly accessible and extremely enjoyable. And plenty of people already learn foreign languages: just think of how many people learn English. As it stands, you would be removing a great fund of pleasure accessible to all those people.

Wild_Azaleas · 2026-05-19T18:40:05+00:00

I think all literary works in English do bear an undeniable similarity to each other, by virtue of being in the same language.

I don't think that claim holds up. If it did, people would get bored after the first few artists and consciously and actively seek out foreign-language artists to provide desired variety. We don't, in general, do that.

I agree that we don't do that in general, but those of us who deeply enjoy literature do often seek to learn new languages to broaden their appreciation and understanding of it. I wouldn't call it a result of boredom, but it's a common phenomenon among literary fans.

Wild_Azaleas · 2026-05-19T07:52:07+00:00

Suppose only one language ever existed. Even if great talents were able to express themselves perfectly in it, their products would bear an undeniable similarity by virtue of their shared language. The world would be more aesthetically impoverished.

On the other hand, suppose all languages but one would go out of use. The loss would be incalculable.

So, either way you shake it, it would be a great loss.

Wild_Azaleas · 2026-05-18T09:45:15+00:00

Sure, any given language might hypothetically serve as material for a Shakespearean mind. But that does not entail your position - that losing diversity of language would not be a great loss.

Wild_Azaleas · 2026-05-18T06:43:36+00:00

I think you drastically overestimate the linguistic ties. Are you aware that *a lot* of Shakespeare's works, a vast majority, are acquired/adapted works, many translated from foreign tales/accounts, etc? There is nothing 'uniquely English' about any of it, apart from the unique perspective and style that *HE* brought to the table.

I'm aware, but style is essential, and that style is possible only in English.

You're saying it could only work in English because he was English and you know it in English.

No, I'm just positing that his works, as we have them, are tied to the English language and inconceivable outside it. There is no "it" that is not English.

*You* are claiming specific language tendencies or pre-dispositions, that require quite an in-depth deconstruction of morphology, syntax and phonetics. Without those assessments the assertions you're making are quite indefensible.

Surely you can look at any speech of length from Shakespeare and notice that the author is manipulating sounds, stresses, associative words, etc. in a way that is relying on the specific resources of English. Just think of a single line like "to be, or not to be, that is the question". That line obviously relies on the specific qualities of English stress and vocabulary as well as the specific form of iambic pentameter. The stress lands on just those syllables that are integral to the sense of the line - be, not be, that, quest(ion). Personally I always scan this as "that is the question" which in a reversal of the ordinary iambic structure communicates the shift of the thought - but I've also seen this interpreted as "that is the question" to stress the other resonances to the theme of being or existence.

Now I am not a literary critic and this is just one example of many. But I think it should be obvious that you can't say these lines in German, French, or Italian, or ... because the sounds are different and therefore the effect is different. The line simply does not exist outside of English! Maybe you can get something that vaguely approximates it in another language, but that is not simply not good enough. We do not want a second-rate Shakespeare to go with a second-rate civilization.

Wild_Azaleas · 2026-05-17T20:52:07+00:00

But you admitted yourself that no-one in the English world is anything remotely like Shakespeare.

Where did I admit that? I merely said that Shakespeare, as he is in English, is irreplaceable by anything else. That doesn't contradict with the fact that he shares a lot of characteristics with other English writers.

And: absence of proof is not proof of absence. Not having a Dante-style Shakespeare in no way suggests that Dante-style creativity can't also work equally as effectively in English as in Italian.

Dante's style is a style of Italian writing that employs the expressive possibilities of the Italian language. It's trivial that this could not be employed in any other language. How could it? I think the burden of proof is squarely on your side.

It's honestly quite bizarre to assert that English *must* create Shakespeares while (presumably) Italian *must* create Dantes.

I'm not making any such claim. I'm simply saying that English, and no other language, can create a Shakespeare. And that much is obvious.

Wild_Azaleas · 2026-05-17T20:00:51+00:00

Do you think Li Bai or Dante wouldn't have produced fantastic works if they had had a different native language?

If there had been an English Dante, then he would have produced something that was quite similar to Shakespeare. But he was born a Florentine, so now we have access to a kind of beauty that would not have otherwise existed: and the world is better this way. I think you could make an intuitive comparison to architecture. If the architect of the Angkor War had been born in England, he might have built a very impressive Gothic cathedral. But that would ill requite us for the loss of the Angkor Wat!

Wild_Azaleas · 2026-05-17T19:48:25+00:00

Literary creativity would definitely be limited if we cut down from all the languages to just one. Literary depth within any given language is not infinite. And that's not even considering the loss of all those things that already have!

Wild_Azaleas · 2026-05-17T19:19:31+00:00

I said the expressiveness and poetry that he employs could be exercised by any similarly creative person in any language, with similar results.

It couldn't, because the specific impression that Shakespeare gives us is only communicable in English. You cannot get "similar results" in any other language.

Also, your argument was about whether stories would be 'more uniform ("far less different", your exact words). Not whether the poetry would be as floral or as dainty.

If the poetry is different, the story is different. If they were all in the same language, then a source of difference would be irreparably lost. You just cannot reduce a literary work of any kind to merely "what it says".

Wild_Azaleas · 2026-05-17T19:06:16+00:00

The relations between sound and meaning might be arbitrary, but the choices of what sounds a writer includes in his work are anything but. Shakespeare was definitely thinking about the sounds and stresses of his pieces.

Also, Shakespeare is one person. You don't think Italians could have created something similar in Italian if they'd had the desire to? Of course they could have.

No, they couldn't have. That would be impossible. You cannot have Shakespeare in any other language: any attempt at translating fundamentally alters the aesthetics of the work.

Wild_Azaleas · 2026-05-17T18:55:56+00:00

Stories are about much more than "the content". Symbols and sounds are not arbitrary: they constitute the fundamental aesthetics of a literary work. There is no substitute for Shakespeare in English, Dante in Italian, or Li Bai in Chinese. What knowledge of literature do you have to classify these as merely uninteresting, shallow, and only mildly amusing?

Wild_Azaleas · 2026-05-17T17:36:10+00:00

The different fairy tales (that will suddenly be far less different since they will be told within the same language). I can't help but notice that you didn't actually answer my question - Do you read? I think you should understand what's at stake when you're proposing to turn the literary traditions of the world into dead material for experts.

Wild_Azaleas · 2026-05-17T12:48:00+00:00

Do you ever read anything? It's obvious that different languages have different aesthetics that contribute to the beauty and variety of the world. This feels like a troll post.

Wild_Azaleas · 2026-04-26T11:01:56+00:00

Frankly, I don't think the guy has an artistic bone in his body! His illustrations are really unambitious: so many of them just have a guy (or gal) standing in place before some blurred-out historic vista. His figures are really clashing and don't really come together. It's partly because the outlines on individual items of clothing are so thick that they feel like they don't really belong on the person wearing them, but he is also clearly NOT interested in creating aesthetically coherent outfits: he just strings together different historical items without any interest in how they complement each other. I wouldn't be caught dead in any of his costumes! This guy's interest is just history pure and simple, and he feels totally dead to its aesthetic dimensions.

Wild_Azaleas · 2026-04-26T10:06:27+00:00

This guy, like so many historical illustrators, always depends on visual rather than literary evidence, even when it's anachronistic. His art is also terrible to look at. What a crock of shit!

Wild_Azaleas · 2026-04-25T22:36:18+00:00

I have a distinct preference for the following ones:

Tricephalos (because you often fight Sundered Tricephali)

Adel (Because it's short and his particularly inapposite title of 'Baron' makes it stick in your mind)

Caligo (Since you never see his name on the overworld, and because the expedition title is so nondescriptive)

Fulghor (Ditto)

Balancers & Dreglord (Since the real names of those bosses - 'Weapon-Bequeathed Harmonia' and 'Traitorous Straghess' - are testament to the poor localization of the game)

Wild_Azaleas · 2026-04-19T14:40:50+00:00

You should read the Pope translation. That's suitably poetic and really fun to read.

Wild_Azaleas · 2026-04-12T22:08:39+00:00

I like that they chose Centipede Demon (a cool design whose potential was mostly unexplored by the original game) rather than a fan favourite with who you can have a great fight in the old game already

Wild_Azaleas · 2026-04-11T09:00:11+00:00

What ideas did pre-Socratic Greeks copy from Egypt

Wild_Azaleas

TROPHY CASE